Characters – Charlierobinsonbooks

Where It All Began 19

The Finale

We were in our ninth week and getting increasingly frustrated. According to an older guy, who seemed knowledgeable. The three of us Pieter, Otto and myself represented a kind of threat to disicpline. The legion considered us as Anglo-Saxons, aggressive, tight-knit, and capable of causing violence inside the unit. He said they would be running endless checks, and maybe we should keep away from each other. I didn’t think so. There was a lot of aggression in the camp and the three of us made a good team.

But I’d forgotten Corporal Yarring’s warning😂

A few days later Otto got into a fight in the shower with some Belgian guys. We intervened and we did well. “An Anglo-Saxon victory over the Franks,” as Otto put it. The next morning we were enjoying our breakfast when a corporal told us to stay where we were until everyone else had left. I thought at last we were going to be shipped out to basic training. Later we marched to a broom cupboard (literally 😂) It was cramped and there were some other new recruits with us. We waited there for two hours. “We are going to be kicked out!” Pieter said. The atmosphere was pretty gloomy. The new recuits said they had a bad ‘Gestapo’ interview, and were fed up anyway. So what was I doing in here?

Otto confessed he’d stabbed a Turkish bloke in a Berlin street fight, and maybe they had found out. Pieter related a couple of tales from his Rhodesia days, which I’ll never repeat, and if he returned to what was now Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe he’d be killed. He presumed this was the reason he was being kicked out. But I reflected on what the older bloke had told us. If a fight broke out involving Brits/Rhodesians and Germans against another group, the staff wouldn’t care who started it they would see a dangerous, cross-national brawl that threatened camp discipline. I recalled Corporal Yarring’s words!

Eventually we were marched past a hatch in a corridor. A soldier asked our name, showed us the five year contract we’d signed, tore it up, and told us not to come back. Pieter, the new recruits, and I had signed up in Paris so we were taken to the rail station and given a ticket back there. Otto? They just showed him the gate.

We went for our first beer in 10 weeks. Propped at the bar, we had all our gear stashed on the floor by our feet, and stood chatting… where to next, who was going where, suddenly one of the new recruits asked me where my mate was. Pieter’s gear had been at the side of mine and he’d been stood at the side of me. But now? He’d gone, it was as though he’d vanished. We puzzled about how he’d got his gear and walked away without us noticing, looked around the bar, and outside in the station, but he’d gone. Someone joked about The Ghost of Aubagne Station. It was strange, and I often wonder what became of him. I caught the train back to Paris, and from there hitched to Calais, at Dover I hitched back up north and decided to visit my eldest sister on the farm for a while. I had a plan.

Happy Trails, folks x.

The Godfather

I read this book way back in 1973. I had seen the film in late 1972 and was eager to see how the book by (Mario Puzo) compared, or vise versa. I remember my girlfriend’s mother refused to let her go with me because it was too violent. I was 15 and we lived on a Bradford council estate. I could only surmise that my girlfriend hadn’t told her mother of our exploits and the fights between my group of mates and the local skinheads. 😂 The movie is a superb adaptation of the book, which is a rare thing even in those days. The dialogue in many places is like for like and so fans of the book were not disappointed. Maybe that’s why it has been so popular and timeless?

Move on 50 years and I find myself scampering round the back streets of Savoca, Sicily. If you are not familiar with the place, it is set on a mountainside and is one of the most beautiful villages in Sicily. It is also the location of a scene from the Godfather movie. The Bar Vitelli in Savoca is the bar where Michael informs the owner that he intends to marry his daughter, Apollonia.

The bar is now a popular tourist haunt (isn’t everywhere?) It’s full of memorabilia from the film and you can treat yourself to a ‘peasant’ dish of eggplant and cheese on bruschetta for a mere 18 euros.

It is also where the wedding of Michael and Apollonia was filmed and the famous walk down the hillside to the town. What surprised me most was when I went into Google maps the “Wedding Walk” is actually shown as a route 😂. If you are a Godfather fan and do get the chance to visit Savoca in Sicily I can recommend it. Apart from the Bar Vitelli it’s a beautiful place to explore.

Happy trails, folks x

Alice in Wonderland

I often wonder if Lewis Carrol (AKA Charles Dodgson) had any idea how sustained and popular his book would become at the time of writing. I would guess not, but Alice in Wonderland must be a phenomenon in comparison to the average novel. This Christmas we visited Castle Howard, who had a plan to take us all down a rabbit hole.

The book is said to have been inspired by a ten year old girl called Alice Liddell. Carroll was a friend of the family and spent quite a lot of time with them. He had a stutter which didn’t affect him when he was around children.

You start the Howard’s Alice Adventure on the Grand Staircase, where on the China Landing you find a lush Victorian riverbank. From there you see where Alice would write her invitations for her spectacular Tea Party. As you stroll along you are treated to the childhood home of the author and his ten siblings. He would tell them fantastic stories and often write them down.

I would say it was a good little Christmas adventure, there had been a lot of thought and work put into all the exhibitions. When you think that a book written in 1865 is still bringing joy to people one hundred and fifty five years later it’s quite an achievement.

I wonder if anyone else has seen old books transformed into entertaining exhibitions? If you have please share in the comments. Or, even better write a blog post and we’ll have fun reading it. Happy trails x

New Novel Finished

It’s a curious feeling when you finish a book. It’s kinda sad in a way, because you know that’s it. The characters are done for now, there are no more adventures left for them. Of course, it might be a welcome relief, depending on how much trauma your character has suffered. In my new novel, I know of at least one character who will be very happy to put his feet up for a while. But what’s next?

As you writers already know, now its a case of getting the book out there. Oh, for an agent haha.

“There you go, delivered on deadline. Sort out the marketing etc, I’m off to start my next book. After a well deserved holiday, of course.”

That is the fantasy. In reality I now start the query letters and wait for the rejections. These don’t bother me as much as it appears to bother other people. I know how competitive the market is and so it appears to be a lottery. Now here comes the back up plan. Self publishing:

Luckily after self publishing my first book this won’t be the minefield it was last time. I’m already on Amazon KDP and up until recently KDP select. I have decided to quit KDP Select for a while and try Draft2Digital for the eBook version. I’ve done some extensive research and they are probably my best option, regardless of a lot of poor reviews. These reviews are on Trustpilot and to be honest I’ve heard some poor reviews concerning Trustpilot. So, I’ll give it a go and make my own decision.

Has anyone else self published and what are your thoughts? I’d be interested to know.

Happy trails.

Charlie